A New Hat: Recognizing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or Injury Awareness (PTSD/I)

~ A submission from the SASFAA Global Issues' Committee ~

A New Hat: Recognizing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or Injury Awareness (PTSD/I)

By: Michael O’Grady

  

Financial aid administrators wear a lot of hats—and some we wear with reluctance.   However wearing the veteran advocacy hat is one we can wear with great alacrity.   As hundreds of thousands of men and women veterans readjust to civilian life, joining the higher education community may be part of that readjustment.  The financial aid community will play a major role in rolling out the welcome mat as they pursue higher education.

About four years ago, the SASFAA Diversity Committee did a survey about challenges financial aid offices envisaged. This survey also included questions about veterans on their campuses.   Some of the anecdotal comments about challenges veterans faced included the nuts and bolts issues like getting their funding in a timely manner.  However there was a large list of comments about “adjusting to campus life” and “personal stress” or not feeling at home in a campus environment.

One eye-opening question was about awareness or training on PTSD/I.  In that survey, 85% of financial aid administrator respondents said they had no awareness or any training in recognizing PTSD/I.  Although there has been a host of media coverage about this issue since this survey was taken, and the number of administrators unaware of PTSD is now probably less than 85%--much can be done to put systemic practices in place to assist student veterans.   

Awareness Works

Two years ago, I chaired a Veteran’s Task Force for financial aid and we did a high-level awareness campaign, including simple bookmarks listing several of the symptoms of PTSD/I.   Shortly after, we started to hear stories about financial aid offices recognizing that some of the “difficult” student situations could have been caused by experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan or other trauma invoking events.  In one case, a bursar was going to get a student ejected from the school because of his behavior.  When they dug a little deeper, they found out that in fact he was a veteran, and had recently returned to the United States and civilian life.  Luckily the financial aid director had recently received and read the bookmark and interceded on the veteran’s behalf.

MST- A New Acronym

MST or Military Sexual Trauma has been around for a long time but is only recently getting the attention it deserves.   It is estimated that 22% of female veterans and 1.2% of male veterans have some form of MST.   With over 200,000 females having served in these conflicts, the number of veterans exposed to this is significant.  More troubling, over 40% of those exposed to MST go on to develop PTSD/I.

Not all cases of PTSD come from combat exposure or other aspects of military life.  Any traumatic event in a student or veteran’s life could trigger a PTSD response.  I recently spoke on a panel with a young woman veteran who suffered from PTSD/I, but it was not from combat.   She participated in the efforts in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina and was part of a horrific “recovery” mission.  She was understandably still shaken up talking about it even 10 years later.

Small Steps VASFAA Can Do: A VOWS Initiative

VASFAA, along with NCASFAA, will be one of the first states to roll out a Veterans On Work-Study Initiative or VOWS.   The initiative is to remind financial aid administrators to include returning veterans when interviewing or filling college work-study, full time, or part-time positions.  Veterans bring a diverse skill set and focus welcomed in the complex but rewarding field of financial aid.   Financial aid offices should reflect the diversity of the student body they serve and having veterans in the financial aid office ensures that their perspective is heard and understood.

About 20 years ago, I was assigned a veteran as my work-study student to develop and initiate what was then called the Federal Quality Control Program—the precursor to today’s Quality Assurance Program.  My institution at the time was one of the first in the nation to join the program, and we were literally building the program from the ground up.  The Veteran Campus Work Study student was instrumental in helping me execute this program, and helped do so on a very short timetable.

He went on to become a financial aid counselor, and assistant director and then associate director of financial aid.  He was well respected by his peers in the state and the SASFAA region.   The diversification of skills that the individual brought to the profession was admirable including his love of Star Trek.

Although he never became the Captain of the Enterprise—he was elected SASFAA Vice President.

Mike O’Grady serves as a member of SASFAA’s Global Issues Committee. He is also Chair of VASFAA’s FOCUS committee, formerly named the Diversity Committee, and he chairs NCASFAA's Veteran’s Task-Force.